Gizmonic Institute Radio: Your MST3K Companion

If there is any fanbase that should be used to cast changes, it’s the MST3K fanbase. Over the years the show has had 3 hosts, 3 Tom Servos, 3 Crow T Robots, multiple mad scientist and second banana sidekicks.

Now it seems that Gizmonic Institute Radio is going to follow in the footsteps of MST3K. Here is a short message from one of the hosts of GIR, Seth:

Hi everyone, it’s me, Seth. You might remember me from space. Well I have some sudden and unfortunate news, I’m afraid, and it doesn’t have to do with sandwiches or clam juice or even tiny screws. I’m taking a break from the confines of space.In fact I have to break the fourth wall and be the actual, human being Seth and not the space character I’ve been playing all along (who’s a secret a lizard person by the way).

When we started this show I had a normal, 40 hour a week job with plenty of fresh, free time to record podcasts and kick it with my online buds. Since then, I’ve taken on more work, and changed jobs twice, and now I work literally seven days a week doing freelance and contract work for a major website, from writing to behind the scenes stuff. And on top of that, I still have a regular job that’s suddenly in a bit of disarray and I’m trying to figure out how the future is going to play out with that, my primary source of income. This isn’t a new development, I’ve been struggling to find time to record for a while now, and occasional show delays were largely my fault. I finally broke the sad news to Jeff that I just can’t fit podcasting into my life right now. I’ve already given up a podcast you never heard of and the other project to which I’m attached is winding down and only has a few remaining episodes. Things are in flux right now, but there are a few potential bright spots at the end of the tunnel where my life will settle down and I can assume my former place as a podcast companion with two of my honest-to-God best friends, Jeff and Matt.

I don’t know when that time will be, but I hope it’s sooner rather than later because when we record, we actually only spend about 25% of the allotted time making the show and the other 75% is spent talking and joking and enjoying ourselves as friends and not just cast members. The show is in excellent hands between Jeff, Renea and Matt, and I really appreciate each and everyone whose name I’ve said during the letter reading segments, and everyone on the Facebook page and those of you who take a more passive route with our show. It feels awesome and I look forward to a bright and sunny future with all of us dancing together under the light of the moon.

–Seth

After 5+ years of being a part of GIR, it’s hard to say a (temporary) goodbye to one of our founding hosts, but we know how hard of a decision this was and we and we all support Seth 100%. Hopefully at some point when things settle down, he will be able to return – there will always be a spot at the recording table open for him!

So what’s going to happen to the Gizmonic Institute Radio and Doctor Odd’s Cinematic Fun Dumpster? Well, the short answer is, nothing! We will still continue to do two episodes a month, and an episode of Dr. Odd’s Cinematic Fun Dumpster for our Patreon backers. “Well what is this show now? Just Jeff talking to himself and slowly going crazy in space?” you’re probably asking yourself. To that I reply “No! That would be a horrible show idea that no one would like!” Instead, allow me to introduce you to our newest cast member, Renea:

You may remember Renea from episode 50 of this show, where she played our space neighbor who was the victim of an even more insidious experiment than ours! Aside from being a lifelong MST3K fan, Renea is also a very talented improv comedian, artist, writer and musician. She is one of the writers/performers for the MST3K-style bad movie riffing live show, Columbian Sci-Fi Cinema, is the keyboard player in the KS indie rock band Funtabi, and was recently featured on The No Sleep Podcast as a writer. She was also Seth, Matt and Jeff’s first choice for a replacement cast member, and we’re very grateful that she agreed to join the show! Her first episode will drop tonight (Episode 54 – City Limits) and for Patreon backers, this month’s Doctor Odd’s Cinematic Fun Dumpster. Give her a friendly GIR community welcome!

That’s all for now – once again, we here at Gizmonic Institute Radio wish Seth the best, and are excited to continue making our wonderful, crazy, MST3K podcast with a slightly different lineup!

Oh no! This week your favorite MST3K podcast hosts are really ‘boned! (that joke will make sense once you’ve listened to the episode, trust me). Dr. Odd unleashes his newest hobby on us, and we get to watch S11E1 – Reptilicus, the first of the FOURTEEN NEW EPISODES OF MST3K THAT CAME OUT THIS YEAR AND I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE THAT THIS IS A SENTENCE I GET TO WRITE. Seth and Jeff have slightly differing opinions on certain aspects of the new episode, but overall really love it.

Once you’ve finished listening, head over to our facebook page and tell us what you think of Reptilicus, or the new season in general. You can also follow us on Twitter, and leave us a nice review on iTunes. And if you really love the show, stop by our patreon page, and for $1 a month, get our secondary podcast – Dr. Odd’s Cinematic Fun Dumpster, where Dr. Odd makes us watch a movie from his private collection, and then talk about it. It’s amazingly funny, and your support helps us do a lot of cool stuff with the show that we wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

I’m not going to lie, things get a little weird this week. Dr. Odd has started some sort of farm in his Chuck E. Cheese basement, but also there might be a gas leak? One thing’s for sure, there are a lot of puns!

We also discuss MST3K S4E2 – The Giant Gila Monster. It’s a movie where people throw a real lizard at models, and features some original “music”, or as I like to call it, “crimes against a ukulele”. Luckily, the film itself is so manic, that the riffing is fantastic, making it a preeeeety great MST3K episode.

Once you’re done listening, you should stop by our facebook group and join our discussion of all things MST3K. We also have a brand new Patreon page where for just $1 a month, you can hear our other new show “Dr. Odd’s Cinematic Fun Dumpster” where Dr. Odd forces us to watch films from his ‘private collection’ and then discuss them. This month we watched Tammy & The T-Rex, which is both as horrible and amazing as it sounds. Lastly, if you like the show and want other people to be able to find it, take a couple seconds and leave us a review on iTunes! We really appreciate it!

It’s here! We asked Dr. Odd to let us watch some movies, and somewhere a monkey’s paw curled shut and he agreed that we could – as long as it was with him and they were movies from his “private collection” This is normally a patreon backer exclusive show, but we thought we would release the first episode for free as a preview! We hope you enjoy it more than we enjoyed the movie he made us watch! Outlaw Will Cain is a movie made by a greasy man in greasier wigs with his also greasy friends that also steals footage from other movies. It’s incomprehensible but somehow a very good representation of what I imagine what it would be like to schizophrenic whose personalities are all weird cowboys.

If you want to continue to enjoy more of Dr. Odd’s Cinematic Fun Dumpster, then you should head over to our Patreon page and donate! This show will be backer exclusive from now on, and we also have some other goodies in store for our backers coming up, so it’s a great time to get in on the ground floor! Thank you for donating and for listening! We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode of the regular show!

We’re excited to dig into the first episode of MST3K season 4, and Dr. Odd is excited about managing a baseball team! A werewolf butler baseball team! But not as excited as he is to tell us about his “roller derby” experiences. Who knew Dr. Odd was so athletic? Certainly not us!

This episode we discuss MST3K Season 4 Episode 1 Space Travelers, which may be the most star studded film they’ve had on the show yet! It’s also one of the most boring and dour films they’ve had on the show to date, despite the fact that it actually won an Academy Award (which we also have serious issue with, but not for the reasons you might think).

We also have a couple of BIG announcements! The first is that we’re launching a Patreon page to allow listeners like you to help support the show! Donating just 1$ a month helps us pay for things like hosting, new equipment, and to spend more time working on making more shows, and more content. It will get you access to a spinoff podcast we’re launching – “Dr. Odd’s Cinematic Fun Dumpster” where Jeff, Seth and Dr. Odd discuss films from Dr. Odd’s personal collection (spoiler alert: they’re all hilariously terrible). The first episode of this show will be free to all listeners in this feed, but then will be a patreon exclusive starting in April.

The second big announcement is that starting in May, we will start doing TWO episodes of this show a month! The first will be our regularly scheduled episode where we continue with the current episode chronology, but the second will be over an episode of the new Season 11 launching on Netflix in April. We wanted to do this not only because we love making episodes of this show, but also because we didn’t want to wait several years to discuss the new, hot, fresh, brand-new MST3K episodes.

Hello everybody! You know, sometimes when life gives you lemons, you challenge yourself by shoving an entire lemon in your mouth and trying to eat it. That old adage has never been more true, especially for us this episode. We also discuss the final episode of season 3, S3E24 – Master Ninja II, which is really just two episodes of a TV show standing on each others’ shoulders while wearing a trench coat and trying to convince everyone that they’re a real movie. It does have a hamster in it though (the film, not the trench coat)!

Once you’ve finished listening, you can head over to our facebook page and join the discussion about MST3K, life, and those little plastic tables that used to come on the center of pizzas. You can also follow us on Twitter, and if you’re feeling like moving one step closer to being our internet best friends, stop by our iTunes page and leave us a review.

Hello friends! It’s nice to see you again! Things are still totally normal up here in space, and this week Dr. Odd let us watch a recording of the world series and showed us his newest hobby! An old friend returns for some goofs as well!

We also discussed MST3K S3E23 – The Castle Of Fu Manchu – the film equivalent of spending an entire day staring at grains of sand being blown around in the wind, except there isn’t any wind and at the end of the day you find out the grains of sand actually had character names. This movie is pure Deep Hurting, and is so bad that it actually negatively affects the episode enjoyment quite a bit. That’s a huge shame because the host segments are actually some of the best in the series so far (particularly the final segment), but even that can’t save things as a whole. We still had a lot of fun talking about it though!

Once you’re done listening, you can head over to our facebook page and join the discussion of all things MST3K, follow us on Twitter, or if you’re really wanting to wash the taste of The Castle of Fu Manchu out of your mouth, stop by our iTunes page and leave a reveiw!

Hello everyone! I hope that you’re enjoying the summertime down on earth, running around and capturing defunct mid-2000’s celebrities on your flip phone app. Or maybe that’s just Dr. Odd.

This episode we discuss MST3K S3E22 – Master Ninja I, a MST3K episode that we didn’t really like that much, riffing a movie that we kind of did like… This paradox has left us shaken to our collective cores – we’ll be over here sitting in the corner, rocking back and forth with our knees clutched to our chests mumbling about racist stereotype accents.

Dr. Odd has mysteriously disappeared, leaving us completely unsupervised up here in space. Since this was the case, we threw a dart at our space calendar and decided that by our calculations (and we’re both very good at regular math and calendar related math) it was probably prettttty close to the Christmastime holidays down on earth, which is great because our audiolog is about MST3K S3E21 – Santa Claus Conquers the Martians! This episode is truly a treat – the movie itself is poorly made and has the world’s most obnoxious theme song, but it has a lot of heart and is genuinely enjoyable in spots. The riffing from Joel and the bots is SPOT ON this episode. These two factors combine to make this a classic episode – great for watching over and over again, or for introducing someone new to the joys of MST3K.